


the blessing

by gingersprite



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Baptism, Character Study, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, unholy mix of book and show canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24728875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingersprite/pseuds/gingersprite
Summary: "Let your servant be born again from the sea, as you were."Five baptisms in Theon Greyjoy's life.
Relationships: Theon Greyjoy & Alannys Harlaw, Theon Greyjoy & Yara Greyjoy, Theon Greyjoy/Sansa Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 55
Collections: Genuary 2021





	the blessing

**Author's Note:**

> The most minor of minor warnings for Theon briefly recounting Ramsay's abuse. Also D&D having Theon castrated is stupid and probably not book canon so imma ignore it.

Alannys walked with her head held high as she approached the water’s edge. The priest was waiting for her several feet ahead, the water already up to his knees; with the sealskin clout under his mottled robes, he could stand up to his neck in the ocean if he wanted and not catch a chill. Alannys felt briefly envious, though her woolen dress would keep her warm enough for this short ceremony. 

The baby at her chest fussed in his sling and she rocked him calm, pointedly ignoring the priest’s judgmental look. The ironborn were not known for coddling their children, and while Alannys had been firmer with her eldest boys, she was more inclined to be soft with this one. Perhaps it was because this new baby came after she’d lost two others: Yara’s stillborn twin- a little girl she privately called Asha- followed by an early miscarriage. 

But she also knew that this one would be her last baby, which made him somewhat special; like Yara, he would be wholly hers to cherish. Not like Rodrik and Maron, who were firmly their father’s sons. Balon had made his preference for his two heirs shown long ago; there simply wasn’t any affection left in him for a daughter and a thirdborn son. 

Her husband had also thoroughly dismissed the idea of attending this baby’s baptism ceremony, despite having been present for his eldest sons’ and Yara’s. He might have been convinced to come had this baptism been taking place at the proper time, rather than a fortnight later. Tradition dictated that ironborn children be baptized the next full moon after their birth, when the tide was highest; but this little one had been so sickly that Alannys had made them wait, fearing he would not survive. 

She knew this was another thing the priest judged her for, though she couldn’t be bothered to care. It had been so many years since she felt as bold as she did now.

Beside her, Yara rubbed her eyes and grumbled at having been pulled from her warm bed to stand at the water’s edge in the middle of the night. Though she was only four years old, she would have to be the one to bear witness to her baby brother’s ceremony; hopefully when she was older she would understand the significance, though right now she just felt terribly annoyed by it all. 

Alannys undid the clasp of her cloak and gave it to her daughter to hold, one hand cupping the baby’s little head. The priest remained silent, watching mother and daughter in a bored sort of way.

“Hold this for me now, sweetling, and pay attention,” Alannys commanded gently.

“Yes Mama,” Yara mumbled, nuzzling her cheek sleepily against the bunched up cloak. The edges of the hood smelled faintly of the balm her mother used to smooth her tight grey curls.

Straightening her shoulders, Alannys braced herself against the water’s cold bite as she stepped forward to meet the priest. Together they waded further out until the water reached their waists, the baby still safely above the water held snug to her chest. When Rodrik had been baptized Alannys had felt hopelessly clumsy throughout the entire ceremony; now she was an old hand at the process, though she was just as gentle as she pulled her son from his sling and unwrapped his blankets. The baby fussed when the cold night air hit his little body, but mercifully for once he didn’t start crying.

“As this child’s mother, I have paid the iron price giving him life,” Alannys spoke. “I bring him now to be given to the Drowned God.”

“What is he to be called?” the priest intoned. Alannys hesitated; she knew that the name she’d chosen for her youngest son was unusual, an old one that had fallen out of favor in the past few centuries. Balon would probably be displeased with her choice, but she figured that if he’d wanted a say then he should’ve been there.

“Theon, of House Greyjoy,” she answered at last. The priest raised an eyebrow at her choice but made no comment.

“He Who Dwells Beneath the Waves,” the priest called out. “Let Theon your servant be born again from the sea, as you were. Let the sea wash his follies and vanities away, let the fish eat the scales off his eyes. Bless him with salt, bless him with stone, bless him with steel.”

“What is dead may never die,” Alannys replied solemnly, and stretched out her arms towards the priest, the infant in her hands. The priest placed his hands alongside hers, and together they lowered the tiny body into the waves.

He was barely under the water for a full second, but when little Theon came back up he made his displeasure known, howling as fiercely as his little lungs could. Yara watched from the shore, her expression rapt, all traces of sleepiness gone.

“What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger,” the priest finished, apparently surprised by the baby’s strength. Alannys bit her lip to keep from smiling as she bundled Theon up in his blankets and held him close to soothe him.

_‘Let them underestimate him,’_ she thought. As a thirdborn son he would have to fight harder for glory and respect, but she had no doubt he would succeed.

\---

Pyke was a cold, miserable landscape, and having spent as much time in the North as he had Theon felt thoroughly qualified to call it such. He couldn’t remember if it had been this inhospitable when he was a boy. The battered little islets that made up Pyke were so different from the wolfswood of the North. Behind him, Castle Pyke loomed in the distance, the massive towers of worn, grey-black stone casting long shadows across the pebbly beach.

Theon watched how the rope bridges above him swayed treacherously in the wind. There were dozens of them, all connecting the smaller structures to the Great Keep. He had a vague memory of running across them as a boy, chasing after Yara for filching his stuffed seal; crossing the rickety bridges had always frightened him, but he’d found the courage to rescue his little friend. 

Or maybe his mind had made up the whole thing. Yara had made her disdain for him so clear, it was difficult to imagine she’d ever wanted anything to do with him.

On the beach by the Great Keep, a priest in ugly mottled robes waited for him. A miserable, sick sort of feeling sat like a stone in his gut. It had started troubling him from the moment he arrived and realized he would not be greeted as the long-lost prince returned home. From then on it only worsened with each jeer from his fellow ironborn, his father’s derision, the dismissal in Yara’s eyes. Only Dagmer Cleftjaw had received him with any warmth, but they’d scarcely had any time together before Balon sent the old captain off.

Theon had thought that burning the letter would relieve this awful feeling. He hadn’t truly known what he would do up until the very moment he burned that letter. It was flashy, and spiteful, and for the brief moments that the flame licked the edges and the parchment blackened and curled, it had felt _good._ It had felt _right._

Burning that letter reminded him of how he’d felt the first time Lord Stark brought him, Robb, and Jon to watch him execute a Night’s Watch deserter. Theon had just turned nine, which made the other boys still only eight; only a few months between them, but he had gleefully lorded those extra months over his companions. Robb and Jon would soon catch up, but for that short while Theon could boast that he was oldest.

When it came time to take the deserter’s head, Ned had made Theon hold the sword: Robb was heir to Winterfell, and Jon at least had Stark blood if not the name, but it was _Theon_ who’d held the ancestral sword of the lords of winter. The Valyrian steel blade was freezing even through the sheath, even through his leather gloves. When Ned drew the blade, an unbearable chill rippled through Theon’s whole body and he fought to hide his shudder.

Unlike with their ages, this distinction didn’t feel like some great honor. Despite having been at Winterfell for several months by then, Theon didn’t feel he knew the stern-faced lord any better. No one ever talked about it outright, but Theon lived with the constant knowledge than any given day Lord Stark might take his head. Offering up that sword, seeing the weak winter sunlight glint off the blade’s edge as it fell downwards, slicing through the man’s neck as smoothly as it had moved through the air-

Jon remained long faced and impassive just like his father; Robb looked faintly nauseous before quickly schooling his features. Theon felt hollowed out, Lord Stark’s voice echoing through his mind. He barely even remembered all of what Ned had said- probably something lofty about _honor_ and _oaths,_ he was sure- but he couldn’t stop picturing the terror and resignation in the doomed man’s eyes.

It felt like he was staring his own fate in the face.

Theon moved before he even had time to think, kicking the head just as he would a leather ball. Pain rippled through his big toe on impact, but his aim was true even then and the severed head went flying, blood tracing its arc through the air. He felt a vicious sense of satisfaction at it, and when he turned back to Ned he gave the lord a grin that was all knives.

 _‘There, old man,’_ he’d thought triumphantly. _‘That’s what I think of your precious honor.’_

That had been how it felt to burn that blasted letter, like he was cursing Ned Stark’s restless shade. But as with the severed head the satisfaction was brief, and soon he found himself grappling with the weight of his choices. Then it had been the crestfallen look on Robb’s face and the realization that he’d broken two toes; now it was accepting the magnitude of just what it was he’d committed himself to.

The old priest was still staring at him impassively, his face as unyielding as Ned Stark’s had been. Theon knelt before him to accept his god’s blessing, and as the salt water poured over his head he wondered if the Drowned God would forgive him for the doubt he felt now.

\---

“Run away, little Theon. It’s what you do best.”

Hot blood filled his mouth as he recoiled from Harrag’s punch. Theon moved to hit back but the other man easily ducked it, kicking him in the chest. He sputtered, fighting to remain upright. Theon’s next swing went wide and Harrag caught his arm and sent him sprawling across the sand. As he got to his feet the other ironborn around them shifted and jeered, though none made a move to intervene; to do so would invalidate Harrag’s challenge.

Theon didn’t have the chance to recover before Harrag was on him again, pinning his arms and cracking their foreheads together. Another punch and Theon was down again; this time when he got to his feet he ran straight for Harrag, ramming his shoulder into the other man’s gut. Theon clung tightly as Harrag rained blows down upon his back, until a well-aimed knee knocked him down. This time it was his opponent who pulled him to his feet, only to hit him back down again.

Harrag pulled back, gathering himself, while Theon lay gasping through his mouthful of blood and sand.

“Stay down,” Harrag ordered. “Or I’ll kill ye’.”

The part of him that was still Reek said he should listen to the man: Theon promptly told that part to shut the hell up, and forced his trembling legs to standing. He managed only a few staggered steps before Harrag sent him back where he’d been.

“I said, stay down, or I’ll _kill_ ye’,” Harrag repeated, sounding as if he couldn’t believe Theon was still trying to fight him.

Theon rolled onto his back, momentarily blinded by the blood from his gashed temple and the sun beating down on him. He felt like a sea turtle hatchling caught on his back, his vulnerable stomach bared for hungry gulls to tear into.

He remembered once when he and Yara had come across a turtle nest, fragments of hatched shells half buried in damp sand. A tiny hatchling, small enough to fit in his chubby toddler fist, was stuck on its back not even a foot from the tide it sought. The little flippers continued to kick but it was rapidly weakening. Yara had kneeled down and scooped the wriggling creature up, and carefully righted it. Instantly, the turtle dashed forward and let the waves draw it out to sea.

“Nuncle says they gotta get to the water on their own, but I don’t see why we can’t help it a bit,” Yara had said.

Theon pulled himself to his feet once again and charged at Harrag, catching the man by his shoulders. Like before Harrag kneed him, this time in the groin; such a move typically sent even the most hardened sailor to his knees, but the pain barely registered to Theon. Stunned, Harrag kicked him again, and again… and again. Against all reason, Theon found himself grinning like a madman. He had endured being flayed and cut and whipped for Ramsay’s sadistic pleasure, countless beatings and rapes, and he’d survived it all; he’d been willing to go back to it all, for _her._ There was nothing this pathetic man could do that was worse than what Theon had already experienced, certainly not a cowardly kick in the balls. 

With his opponent caught off guard, Theon took his chance and crashed his forehead into Harrag’s face, fragile nose bones giving way in an instant. He fell back and Theon tackled him, sending them both the rest of the way down. Finding some last reserve of strength, Theon drew his fist back and began wailing on him, raining down blow after blow until Harrag no longer moved.

At some point during the fight, their audience had stopped laughing and whooping; now they watched dumbstruck as Theon fell back from his defeated opponent. A laugh bubbled at his lips as his pulled himself to standing one final time. His knees instantly buckled, but this time another man stepped in and caught him. Steadied, Theon looked over the stunned faces of the men whose allegiance he had won. Whatever contempt they had for Theon aside, he was still their prince and he had beaten Harrag in combat: they were his to command.

Once, Theon might have tried to win them over with a rousing speech, like he’d attempted just before he lost Winterfell. He knew better now; he’d learned several hard, painful lessons since that disastrous campaign. Even if he’d wanted to make such a speech the words wouldn’t come, his strength quickly fading.

“Not for me,” he gasped out, the only words now that mattered. “For Yara.”

“For Yara!” the ironborn echoed back. 

Lurching forward, Theon stumbled towards the shore, the men parting for him. The moment he touched the water the last of his strength gave way and he knelt before the waves. Like that turtle hatchling from so long ago, he felt compelled to cup the seawater in his hands and dash it across his face, the blood and water mingling. It was cold and the saltwater stung in his open wounds, but it barely registered. The ringing in his ears was almost like words: _Theon, Theon, Theon,_ it seemed to call, like the weirwoods had called to him at Winterfell. 

He thought about how his entire life had been a series of impossible choices: Greyjoy or Stark, ironborn or greenlander, son or hostage, hero or coward. He heard his mother’s helpless wails as he was ripped from her arms as a boy; saw Yara surrounded by flames, and the terrible glee in his uncle’s single black eye. He remembered how it felt to hold Sansa Stark in his arms one last time.

Jon Snow had said he was both a Greyjoy and a Stark, and perhaps he was. But now Theon knew, before all else, he was a child of the sea.

\---

The day of Yara’s crowning, a priest of the Drowned God stood waiting for them on the shore. It took Theon several takes to realize that the man was his uncle Aeron, despite having seen him once before at the disastrous kingsmoot: it was hazy, like many of his memories shortly after escaping Ramsay were, and he’d struggled to look anyone in the eye.

The uncle in Theon’s memories bore only the faintest resemblance to the dour man before him; Aeron had always been the more pleasant of Balon’s brothers. He once won a ship by betting he could douse a hearth fire by pissing on it, and promptly renamed his trophy the _Golden Storm._ He’d loved to tell that story, usually once he was well in his cups, and the only way anyone could get him to stop laughing at his own cleverness was to get him to play the pipes.

Aeron was the youngest of old Lord Quellon’s sons who still breathed, yet he seemed older to Theon than his own father did. His hair and beard were scraggly and long- far longer than most ironborn or even northmen wore theirs- and shot through with grey. He reeked of stale salt water and old fish guts. There was an odd stretched quality to his skin that seemed to have aged him prematurely, as if all the time spent in the ocean had leached his youth.

This man didn’t look like the sort who enjoyed carousing and drinking, or winning ridiculous wagers; he didn’t look like he enjoyed much of anything. 

“He seems a very solemn man, your uncle,” Sansa whispered from her spot next to him, holding his arm in hers.

“He wasn’t always,” Theon whispered back, not letting his focus stray from his sister’s form as she approached their uncle. He and Sansa- along with the rest of those in attendance, an odd party of ironborn and northmen- weren’t permitted any closer to the ceremony. It was presumably to prevent any interference, but privately Theon wondered if it was that what the Drowned God had to say was meant only for Yara’s ears. The only others allowed on the shore were two of his uncle acolytes, to help carry his sister’s limp body back onto land.

Yara’s face was calm, serene even, as Aeron lowered her back into the waves. Even prepared as she was, her limbs instinctually kicking out as her body fought to get to the surface. But Aeron was a practiced hand, one of the most renowned members of his order, and deceptively strong even against a young warrior. 

As her struggles slowed, Aeron began the sacred chant.

“Let Yara your servant be born again from the sea, as you were. Bless her with salt, bless her with stone, bless her with steel. Listen to the waves, listen to the God. He is speaking to us, and he says we shall have no queen but Yara Greyjoy. Let the sea wash your follies and your vanities away. Let the old Yara drown. Let her lungs fill with sea water, let the fish eat the scales off her eyes. What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger. What is dead may never die!”

“What is dead may never die!” the assembled ironborn all answered; the northerners stayed silent, respectfully watching the proceedings. Sansa had clutched his arm when they saw Yara go lax, and Theon took her hand and squeezed it. He also feared for his sister, but he had faith in their uncle’s skill and in her strength. If anyone could survive this ordeal, it was Yara.

The acolytes were quick to drag her onto the sand and Aeron waited scarcely a moment before starting the rhythmic pulses and breaths that would call her back from the Drowned God’s halls. Theon waited, his own breath caught in his throat- and then Yara hacked and sputtered, chest arching up from the sand, and Aeron rolled her onto her side and with a few hearty thumps to her back she coughed up the rest of the seawater.

The acolytes moved to help Yara up, but she shrugged off their hands and got to her feet on her own. She looked a wild thing, with her short hair slicked back and her chest heaving as she sucked in harried breaths; even from across the distance she met Theon’s gaze, and he gave a tentative smile.

“I have been to the Drowned God’s halls!” their new queen shouted to her people, her voice still rough from her return journey. “I have seen him, the Lord our God! He and all His merlings embraced me, and sent me back with a message! We must repair our islands, as we would holes in a ship’s hull; we will make our people rich and prosperous with trade, and we will never bow to a greenlander again!”

The ironborn exploded into raucous calls and shouts at her words; the northmen cast nervous glances at Sansa, but seemed soothed by her calmness. The history of enmity between their two peoples was not something that could be healed within their lifetimes, and yet Theon had hope that they would usher in a new era of cooperation and peace.

Aeron placed the driftwood crown on Yara’s head, and her crew surged forward to lift her up on their shoulders and shout her name. Her crowning complete, Theon at last felt safe to turn away and meet Sansa’s gaze. There was a gentle smile at her lips, and he found he had a hard time not focusing just on them.

“Your sister is a queen now. Officially,” she said.

“As you will soon be too,” he replied. Sansa flushed lightly at the reminder, like she couldn’t quite believe she had been chosen to lead her people.

“Where will you go next?” she asked hesitantly. This thing that had been brewing between them since he returned to her… he hadn’t hoped to imagine that it could be anything more. And yet, the way she looked at him now, her blue eyes shining and clear as a cloudless sky, he dared to think that maybe they could have something if only he had the courage to act.

“Wherever you’d go, if you’ll have me,” he said softly, bringing a hand to tentatively cup her cheek. She sighed, her eyes fluttering closed, and leaned into the touch.

“Let’s go home,” she breathed. 

_Home._ Theon thought he liked the sound of that.

\---

It was nearly six-and-twenty years to the day that Theon returned to the stretch of shore where he was first baptized; unlike with that solemn little ceremony, a crowd of people were gathered on the shore to watch. Himself and Sansa, of course, along with Ser Brienne, the Blackfish, and Arya and her smith, fresh from some new adventure; his Harlaw aunt and uncle, who were hosting them at Ten Towers; Dagmer Cleftjaw and Aeron Damphair and Yara, the only constant from his own baptism as a babe.

Sansa held their little son in her arms, bouncing him gently as he looked out at the ocean with wide eyes. He had Sansa’s auburn curls and the long Stark face, but his roving eyes were a Greyjoy sea-green. At six moons old he was well past the typical age for baptism, though it couldn’t be helped; this was the earliest they could make the journey, because despite their respective statuses, they couldn’t simply abandon their duties on a whim.

It didn’t matter though: like his mother had been, their son would be raised keeping the faiths of both his parents. He had already been named before the old gods and anointed with the seven oils, and now all that was left was for him to meet his father’s god. Uncle Rodrik, scholar that he was, had been intrigued by the idea, and the night they arrived on Harlaw he and Sansa had spent several hours discussing the different theological texts over supper. 

Theon had remained quiet throughout, content to watch them, with his little son on his knee. A warm feeling bloomed in his chest as he watched his beautiful wife conversing easily with his kin; their own childhoods had been far too short and brutal, but they would give their summer child the security they had been denied.

“Alannys named that one for Theon Stark, an ancestor of yours,” Rodrik commented offhandedly, and suddenly Theon had been all ears. He’d often wondered if there wasn’t some secret link between his name and the ancient King of Winter, as his name was unusual among the ironborn, but who would he have even asked?

“Did she ever tell you why?” he spoke up; Sansa gave him a curious glance, but Theon was focused entirely on his uncle. 

“Well, Theon Stark’s mother was of the islands, though her name has since been lost. It is said that this was why he fought the ironborn so fiercely, that he needed to prove his allegiance lay only with the North,” he explained. Theon stiffened at this, and under the table Sansa gripped his hand in comfort.

“Lanny always did have a flair for dramatic irony,” Gwyn remarked dryly, though the look on her face seemed fond as she remembered her beloved sister.

“Why- why would she name me for him then?” Theon stammered. Rodrik sat back in his chair and hummed a little.

“I think, she knew that as a third son you would have a harder time finding your place in the world,” the old lord mused. “And maybe the story of your namesake would help guide you some. For all that Theon Stark fought, it never seemed to bring him any peace. But you found a better way, nephew, your own way; and I’m certain your mother is proud of you.”

Now, in the shadow of Castle Pyke, Theon and Sansa approached the shore where Aeron waited. They wore similar garb of silver and a blue-green that turned dark as the deepest oceans when they waded out; Brienne held Sansa’s fur-trimmed cloak for her while Yara had insisted on holding his, though she refused to explain why. Sansa unwrapped their boy from the blanket she had embroidered with wolves and krakens during her pregnancy, while Theon studied his uncle. 

The Damphair was still grizzled and serious, though he seemed to have found some peace following Euron’s death. He only seemed a little annoyed at how Sansa kissed their son’s head- so much more coddling than an ironborn woman would have been- and his lips even twitched a smile when the babe looked him up and down in fascination.

“As this child’s mother, I have paid the iron price giving him life,” Sansa said, having paid careful attention to Yara about the ceremony. “I bring him now to be given to the Drowned God.”

“What is he to be called?”

“Robb, of the houses Greyjoy and Stark,” she said. The moment the afterbirth had been cleaned from him and they saw his red hair, they’d both known there was only one option for his name. Aeron nodded approvingly; he likely didn’t know or care about the boy’s namesake, but the fact that he’d be known for both his houses spoke volumes. Someday upon the wolf throne there would sit a King of Winter and Sea.

“He Who Dwells Beneath the Waves,” Aeron called out. “Let Robb your servant be born again from the sea, as you were. Let the sea wash his follies and vanities away, let the fish eat the scales off his eyes. Bless him with salt, bless him with stone, bless him with steel.”

“What is dead may never die,” Theon murmured. He cupped the back of the baby’s head, his hand pressed against Sansa’s, and together they lowered their son into the waves to receive the blessing.

**Author's Note:**

> I know that for many fandom is an escape from the troubles of real life, and that this is just a silly little fanfic, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't say this: Black lives matter, they have _always_ mattered, and if you are protesting, remember to take precautions against COVID and stay with people you trust.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [gingersprites](gingersprites.tumblr.com), hit me up there for more of my bullshit.


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